


Six months

by sloganeer



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-22
Updated: 2007-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:13:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloganeer/pseuds/sloganeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You'll never take me alive, copper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six months

**Author's Note:**

> Post-series. Thanks to Space Channel for daily reruns.

The airport sounds like bored children, smells like jet fuel, mostly. Jim has been focused in on the food court for the the last hour. He takes in the meat and the grease, savours it because, now that Sandburg's home, it might be the closest Jim gets to a burger for weeks.

The plane is late, and the Welcome Home party -- the one Megan insisted on, organised, and broke into the loft while Jim was in the shower to decorate for -- will have started by now. It makes Jim nervous, thinking about the people in his house. He's worried about what the guys are getting into, and, in that moment, Sandburg sneaks up on him.

"Stick 'em up," Sandburg says, poking a finger into Jim's back. Jim turns to glare, and Sandburg holds up his one free hand, still shaped like a gun. "You'll never take me alive, copper."

He's loaded down with bags and boxes, more stuff than he left Cascade with. Jim takes a carved wooden box from under his arm before the kid drops everything. Then he takes another look, because something isn't quite right. Jim's still working it out when Sandburg drops a brightly woven tote bag to the floor, shrugs two backpacks off his shoulders, and reaches up for Jim. Sandburg pulls him down just enough for a kiss.

This reunion is six months coming, and, for the last week -- except for the damn Hilroy case -- this is what Jim has been thinking about. Jim's life is quiet without Sandburg in it, and, in those still moments, Jim thinks about having Sandburg back where he belongs, and about maybe being the self-aware one in this relationship for once, about maybe taking that last step and kissing Sandburg first.

Except Sandburg went and cut his hair.

Jim pulls away, lips wet and tongue unsure. He looks at Sandburg, gets a damn good look, gets a hand up in there where the short hairs bristle his fingertips and the skin is rough and sunburnt.

"You didn't say."

Sandburg grins, and touches Jim's lips with his own.

There's a stack of letters at home, postcards and notes written on whatever scrap of paper Sandburg had on hand. Jim read each one as it arrived, on the elevator up to the loft, and again, in bed, where the letters got filed on his bedside table. They didn't speak until Sandburg's call from the Mexican airport, asking for a ride home. But Sandburg said nothing about the hair and the kissing, and Jim wouldn't have seen this a mile away.

The guys at the station are calling this trip "Sandburg's Last Fling," a few more months of being an anthropologist before he gives it all up for the Academy. Sandburg didn't say much about the trip, only that it was an expedition into the Amazon jungle with an old friend who was now at the University of British Columbia. They weren't asking questions about Sandburg's diss or his problems at Ranier. They only wanted to know if he had six months to spare.

The way Sandburg jumped at the chance, Jim knew what it was about. He needed time, just time, away from Cascade and the questions, from Major Case, his mother, and Jim.

Jim gave him time, even gave him a ride to the airport, but Sandburg is home now, that mess of curls cropped short and his arms around Jim. It looks like Sandburg has made his choice, and it feels a hell of a lot like the one Jim made for himself.


End file.
